what is the xyz affair and what were the consequences?!?!?!?

Answer 1

XYZ Affair
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The XYZ Affair was a 1797 diplomatic episode that worsened relations between the United States and France and led to the undeclared Quasi War of 1798. The Jay Treaty of 1795 angered France, which was at war with Britain and saw the treaty as evidence of an Anglo-American alliance. President John Adams and his Federalist Party had also been critical of the tyranny and extreme radicalism of the French Revolution, further souring relations between France and the United States.[1] The French seized nearly three hundred American ships bound for British ports in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Caribbean. Federalist leaders like Alexander Hamilton called for war, but President John Adams, also a Federalist, sent a diplomatic delegation to Paris in 1797 to negotiate peace. Three French agents, originally called X, Y, and Z,[2], demanded a $250,000 bribe for the French foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, and a $12 million loan to France as a condition for continuing negotiations; they also wanted a formal apology for comments made by Adams.


TalleyrandThe American delegates Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry rejected the demands. "Not a sixpence," was their response (translated by newspaper editors as "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!")

The U.S. offered France many of the same provisions found in Jay's Treaty with Britain, but France reacted by sending Marshall and Pinckney home. Gerry remained in France, thinking he could prevent a declaration of war, but did not officially negotiate any further.


John AdamsJeffersonians, sensing that the American delegates were to blame, demanded to see the documents. Adams released the report, setting off a firestorm of anti-French sentiment.

A Quasi-War erupted (1798-1800), with American and French warships and merchants ships fighting in actual combat in the Caribbean and off the American coast. (It was called "quasi" because there was no formal declaration of war.) The Americans abrogated the Franco-American Alliance. Adams began to build up the navy, and a new army was raised. Full-scale war seemed at hand, but Adams appointed new diplomats led by William Murray. They negotiated an end to hostilities through the Treaty of Mortefontaine. The XYZ affair significantly weakened the affection Americans had for France. [3]

Answer 2

XYZ Affair name usually given to an incident (1797-98) in Franco-American diplomatic relations. The United States had in 1778 entered into an alliance with France, but after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars was both unable and unwilling to lend aid.

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Answer 3

XYZ Affair


name usually given to an incident (1797–98) in Franco-American diplomatic relations. The United States had in 1778 entered into an alliance with France, but after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars was both unable and unwilling to lend aid. The anti-French Federalists gained the upper hand in the United States, and there was considerable antagonism toward France, particularly after the Genet (see Genet, Edmond Charles Édouard) affair. The conclusion (1795) of Jay’s Treaty with England, which partially vitiated the agreements with France, aroused French anger. Numerous American ships were seized by French privateers, and the countries drifted into a mutually hostile attitude. President Washington sent Charles Cotesworth Pinckney as minister to France, but the French government refused to receive him. Shortly afterward John Adams, the new President, sent (1797) John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry to join Pinckney on a peace mission to France. This three-man commission was immediately confronted by the refusal of French foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand to receive it officially. Indirect suggestions of loans and bribes to France were made to the commissioners through Mme de Villette, a friend of Talleyrand. Negotiations were carried on through her with Jean Conrad Hottinguer and Lucien Hauteval, both Swiss, and a Mr. Bellamy, an American banker in Hamburg; the three were designated X, Y, and Z in the mission’s dispatches to the United States. The proposal that the Americans pay Talleyrand about $250,000 before the French government would even deal with them created an uproar when it was released in the United States, where the pro-British party welcomed the chance to worsen Franco-American relations. The U.S. representatives made no progress and the mission broke up, Marshall coming home, Pinckney taking a sick daughter to S France, and Gerry, a Republican and Francophile, remaining in France temporarily. Meanwhile, an undeclared naval war ensued between France and the United States. Both Talleyrand and President Adams wished to avoid a declaration of war. In 1799 Adams, to the intense disgust of the Federalist leader, Alexander Hamilton, named William Vans Murray the U.S. minister to France and assigned Oliver Ellsworth and William Richardson Davie to accompany him. The result was the Treaty of Mortefontaine (Sept. 30, 1800), known as the Convention of 1800, a commercial agreement that improved relations between the two nations. The XYZ Affair contributed to American patriotic legend in the reply Pinckney is supposed to have made to a French request for money, “Millions for defense, sir, but not one cent for tribute.” This reply was certainly not made, but a better case can be made for the alternate version, “No, no, not a sixpence.” 1

Answer 4

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